Six teams of University of Arizona experts, including several VIP Team Leads or Executive Committee members (Dr. Scott Saleska, Dr. Cristian Roman Palacios, Dr. Ken McAllister) were chosen as the 2025 Big Idea Challenge awardees for their proposals to accelerate transdisciplinary projects that could transform lives, shape policy, drive economic impact, and provide training for the next generation of talent.

This initiative aims to study the requirement for a bioregenerative life support system that can recycle waste materials, water, nutrients, and air. NASA is investigating technologies such as developing planting substrate in space and controlled environment agricultural systems. A range of crops, such as fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens, must be produced by space agriculture systems.

Diana Daly, a VIP leader and associate professor of practice in the College of Information Science who studies digital culture and how people share their belief systems online, weighs in for a U of A News article on the different types of false online information, and why there are no easy solutions.

Groundwater forecasting, aquaculture, and helping smallholders were winning innovation areas in the latest innovation challenge from nonprofit FoodShot Global, which hosts challenges for entrepreneurs based on a particular issue related to food, agriculture and/or environment. Dr. Laura Condon was a winner, and her team's innovation is receiving broad attention.

A fellowship for women in medicine and science, including VIP Team Leader Dr. Salma Patel (left, with another SSWIMS fellow Dr. Sujata Saha, right), supported projects that are improving education, research and patient care — and preparing participants for leadership.

This initiative aims to study how solar panels can be used to help shade crops, known as agrivoltaics. This innovative approach allows food and renewable energy production to coexist in the same space.

Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) at the University of Arizona is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. David Margolis as its faculty director.

“Students know so much about the online world. It’s essential to involve that knowledge in what we teach. I started collecting student stories for our podcast Social Media & Ourselves in 2018, but it was the iVoices Media Lab that supercharged the involvement of student voices in what our students learned."

New data on over 1,500 trees across nearly 1,000 sites shows that an existing theory of how individuals within a species will respond to a changing climate might not be true.

The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program at UArizona is holding its Inaugural Poster Session on Monday, March 25, from 2 to 4 pm in the Forum (First Floor) of the Health Sciences Innovation Building at the University of Arizona Tucson campus.